UNENCUMBERED

I am unencumbered by dog,
by man,
by theories.

Take your sideways glances,
your sharp-toothed grin,
and your crazy elsewhere.

I will glide,
nyet, nyet,
slide along slowly and surely.

Take off this rag-tag coat.
This long shouldered burden.
This freedom from being free.

Set the funeral pyre alight
With bow and arrow
Become a viking and rebel.

Salt stained tears become your face.
Heart eating becomes a hobby.

Sequestered by the calm.

WINDOW TO 21ST STREET

I’m kicked back
in the recliner
with a pillow propped
at my lower back,
and the curtains drawn wide.

I pick the dead skin
from my heel,
where I had a sizable
blister in July, and now
a mosquito bite.

Every time I awoke
during the night
to scratch it,
I thought of the Zika virus
and what a pain in the ass
mosquitoes are —
their only purpose being
to spread diseases.

The women’s 100 meter hurdles race
is on the Rio Olympics,
and I feel lazy watching it.
I wonder how many hours of training
that woman put in, only to come in
last.

Outside, near the sidewalk,
an old man who has a face
that is one continuous wrinkle,
dons a bucket hat,
and has the leaf blower
cranked full blast.
It’s only purpose to generate noise
in his perfectly manicured yard.
I wonder what he’s seen,
this old man:
combat, death, the first rose in June
for the last 78 years?

My focus goes back
to the itch near my heel
and smaller things,
like how strange my voice sounds
when I hear it on video.